by Caryn Lix
* * *
Several hours later, after we’d ransacked the neighborhood and pillaged everything we could carry, we finally retreated to the apartment the others had discovered. If you squinted, a pleasant neighborhood still underlaced the area’s current decomposition. Large patches of dead ground and weeds marked where parks and gardens had stood. A rusty children’s playground graced one end of the street, and fading awnings and shop signs lined the road.
The apartment building was ten stories tall, with what I suspected had been a well-furnished lobby. The lifts resembled the antigrav lifts I remembered from back home. Actually, the entire place could have been a mid-class corporate apartment on a sponsored street in any city on Earth—more evidence for Rune’s bizarre theory. I stumbled over that thought. I just couldn’t accept the idea of a telepathic connection with aliens thousands of light-years away. But I also couldn’t come up with a better explanation, at least not right now.
We had taken over the second floor of the building, close to the ground in case we needed to make a quick escape, although Mia assured us she’d personally spent the night inspecting every room on every floor, and her bloodshot eyes seemed to back her up. “We’re using this larger apartment as a common area,” Priya said, indicating a corner apartment with the door propped open. “If you choose a different location to sleep in, make sure everyone knows where it is.”
A muscle worked along Cage’s jaw. I took his hand and squeezed it. “We’ll be sure to keep you posted,” I said in what didn’t sound, even to my ears, like a very diplomatic tone. “Cage, can I talk to you for a moment?”
We picked an unoccupied apartment at random, and I pushed him inside. The small entranceway led into a dusty but well-equipped kitchen and living room, and Cage promptly began pacing back and forth across both. The sun shone through the window, illuminating the white leather couch, the hardwood flooring, and the layer of filth over everything. “Who does she think she is?” he fumed. “Like we’re going to sit back and take orders from the woman who tried to capture us on Omnistellar’s behalf?”
“Would you calm down?” I demanded. I opened cupboards methodically, searching for anything of use, but nothing much remained. I found pots, pans, things you’d expect for a kitchen. I did not find weapons beyond a few paring knives, usable food or water, or a large book entitled THE NAME OF THIS PLANET AND THE HISTORY OF ITS INHABITANTS. “There are more important things for us to think about.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I gave up on my search and sat at the table, noting the large vase of fake flowers dominating the centerpiece. It was hard to tell what color they were under the dust. “Like the fact that we’re on an alien planet with no way home. Or that something horrible happened here, and everyone seems to have fled quickly. We don’t know if we’re safe. It could have been a radioactive event, for example, or a pandemic, and we might be breathing in poison without even knowing it.” My words came faster, spilling out of me in a panic. The last twenty-four hours were a blur, and in this moment of silence, my mind was working overtime, my heart hammering an unsteady beat. “Why would people leave everything they owned? Not even salvage that grocery store? If people died, where are the bodies? And what about the fact that everything on this planet looks exactly like it would back on Earth? Don’t think too hard and you could be in Arizona. What are the odds I somehow stumbled across another species in the universe that’s just like us? And if it wasn’t random, what brought us here? Oh, and of course there are still the aliens, and my parents are dead.” I threw those last words at him with a vicious, cutting precision that surprised me. I hadn’t realized I’d been angry, holding this in, until this moment.
Rage and grief warred for supremacy inside me, and I gladly gave in to the anger. I was so tired of crying, of feeling sad. It was almost a relief to lose control. My voice rose as my fists tightened on the table. “It’s fantastic you and Priya are caught in a power struggle for control of our little group, but it would be nice if you took one damn moment to think about the rest of us. About my parents. About your sister. Even about Matt and Priya and Hallam, because Omnistellar betrayed them just like they betrayed the rest of us! And I—”
During my rant, Cage had closed the space between us. Now he dragged a chair forward until our knees were touching and caught my fists between his hands. “You’re right,” he said simply, interrupting me. “I’m sorry. I’m stressed too, and it comes out like … well, like this. And for what it’s worth, you’re not the only one who’s noticed the similarities between this place and Earth. Remember Liam, though. He was an alien, but he was about as close to human as I’d ever seen. Maybe ravenous monsters who reproduce by creating kids with superpowers and then murdering them aren’t the norm. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
I smiled in spite of myself and tipped forward so our heads touched. Cage sparked up fast, it was true. But it was easy to bring him back down, and when you pulled him outside himself, he became the most unselfish, gentle, kindhearted person I’d ever met. That was why I …
I slammed the door on that thought. Cage and I had known each other a few weeks now. Our relationship had started hard and fast, kissing in an airlock on our way to potential death, and then stalled as we’d dealt with all the trauma of the aftermath. Now we were together again, stronger and better. So how did I feel about him? I ran my hand over his face, the sharp familiar lines, the softness of his skin, and I knew in my heart I didn’t want to live without him.
But if I said that, I might scare him half to death, so I replied, “Thank you. And I guess things aren’t so bad. I mean, we have food and water. We’re not going to die quite yet. We have time to work these things out. But Cage … my ability to copy other powers is what let me get us here. I pulled from Liam, and he died in the explosion. I can’t take us home.”
“I know. We’ll figure it out, okay? Together.” He leaned in and kissed me, and for a blissful moment I let emotion sweep me away, let the pull of his lips draw me into a world where nothing mattered but the two of us and the connection between us.
And then the door to the apartment slammed open and Mia stomped in, and the spell was broken. “This is bullshit,” she announced, vaulting onto the counter, not seeming to notice as Cage and I scrambled apart. “I need your help, Cage. We have to get out of here, and Priya seems to be settling in.”
Alexei trailed in behind her, looking more exhausted than usual. I sympathized. It couldn’t be easy, keeping up with Mia. “Mia mine,” he said, “you haven’t slept in days. Please lie down.”
“And let whatever attacked Hallam come after me? No, thank you. It’s time to move, not rest.”
Cage groaned, letting his head drop to his hands. “You didn’t buy Priya’s crap about a mystery assailant, did you? Rune called it. Hallam bumped into a shelf like an idiot, and a cast-iron pan smacked him in the head. That’s enough to topple even a mutant bounty hunter.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Priya’s right about one thing: Legion is strong, fast, and powered. They have metal parts where they should have flesh and bone, and they have tiny iron lumps where they should have brains. It’s possible Hallam tripped. But I’m not buying it.”
Alexei sighed, and I suspected this was a continuation of an argument they’d been having before. He’d probably dragged us into it hoping we’d talk some sense into Mia—or that Cage would. I still wasn’t sure how Mia felt about me. Right now, even though she was ostensibly including me in the conversation, she was refusing to meet my eyes.
“Look,” I said. “Let’s make a deal. Let’s take twenty-four hours to decompress. Tomorrow at lunchtime, we’ll sit down and discuss all of this as a group. That group can include Priya and Hallam and … and Matt, if you want it to, or it can just be us. Your call. But Mia, we need rest. All of us, even you. It’s been a long time since we weren’t being chased by someone, and we’ve all lost so much since this started.”
I expected an argument, but to my su
rprise, Mia’s head lowered and she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. I guess you’re right.” She slid to her feet and headed out of the apartment, punching Alexei lightly on the chest as she went. He glanced at Cage, one of his eyebrows arched, a frown on his cinder block face, and then went after her.
“What just happened?” I asked. I’d never seen Mia give in without a fight.
Cage shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe you made so much sense you actually convinced Mia to listen to reason. Is that possible?”
“That is not possible, no.”
He grinned. “Then chalk it up to another mystery we’ll unravel tomorrow. In the meantime, we have this whole apartment to ourselves, and there’s food and water in Priya’s common area. Let’s follow your advice and take a bit of time to unwind.”
“That,” I said, a relieved smile breaking out over my own features, “sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.”
The planet conquered. The sleeping sand awakes. Shifting and the consciousness recoiling, stirring in the drive to devour.
The dead planet stirs and the sleeping tendrils wake and the great arching presence shifts its attention from the next to the previous.
SIX
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THE prospect of a whole afternoon with Cage was too good to be true, because moments after he proposed it, his conscience got the better of him and he insisted on checking in with the others. “I need to know everyone’s okay. Except … Rune. Will you talk to her?” he pleaded. “I don’t want her to think I’m babying her. Things are still a bit tense between us. I’ll check in on everyone else, and then I promise, just me and you for the rest of the night.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but I didn’t mind, not really. Part of what I liked about Cage was his sense of responsibility to his friends. And so I found myself knocking on an adjacent apartment door. Inside, it was the spitting image of what I’d already named “my” apartment in my head, but furnished in a totally different style, what would have been called bohemian on Earth: lots of bright colors and floor cushions and intricate patterns. Rune and Imani were lounging in beanbag chairs. “We beat the dust out of these two,” Rune explained, “but I wouldn’t recommend flopping into any of the others.”
“I’m fine on the couch,” I assured her, settling myself onto a low red sofa and folding my legs beneath me. “Are you two staying here?”
“And Reed and Jasper, but they went to hunt through some of the other apartments.” Imani nodded down the hall. “There are three bedrooms in this place. Lots of room. We felt more comfortable sticking together, you know? I’m not sure any of us completely trust Legion quite yet.”
Rune’s face fell at the mention of the name. “I still can’t understand how Matt could betray us like that,” she said softly.
Imani sat, brushing the ends of her hijab over her shoulders. “Listen, girl,” she said. “Matt did what he had to in order to survive.”
“I know. It doesn’t sound like Legion gave him much of a choice. But did he have to throw himself quite so wholeheartedly into hunting us?”
“He thought I shot him and left him for dead,” I reminded her. “In his mind, we betrayed him. Or at least I did.”
Rune caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I mean … I didn’t hurt him. I wouldn’t have, ever …” She trailed off, maybe catching the guilt on my face, and forced a smile. “When the two of you were on the Omnistellar ship together … did he say much? About … well, anything?”
About her, I suspected she meant. But he hadn’t, so I only replied, “He seemed to forgive me. At any rate, I forgave myself, and he didn’t get angry about it.”
Imani laughed. “That’s something.”
I stayed with the girls for another twenty minutes, until Reed and Jasper returned with their arms full of blankets, clothes, and something else: a handheld tablet. “We’re hoping Rune can make it work,” Reed explained, tossing it in her direction.
Rune made a face. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you what happened in the supermarket.”
“Come on,” Reed pleaded. “Please? Please? Pretty please? I haven’t played video games in years. You can be my own magical battery.”
“How do you know this tablet has games?” Imani retorted. “It could be medical textbooks or tax forms.”
Jasper sighed heavily and indicated a duffel bag behind him. “That’s what I said. So he collected all the others he found.”
Reed brushed their concerns aside. “One of these bad boys has to have games. Come on, Rune.”
Rune laughed and sat up, sweeping her hair behind her ears. “All right, I’ll try. But when I powered the scanner in the store, it stopped working as soon as I set it down. If you think I’m going to hold this tablet while you play vid games, you’d better think again. Using my powers takes effort, you know. I think my energy is best saved for something else.”
I slipped out of the room as she bent over the tablet. Where was Cage? He’d said he was going to check on the others, but they were all right here—all except Alexei, Mia, and Legion. If he was really checking on them, he should have turned up by now. Doubt stirred in my stomach. What was Cage actually doing?
I returned to our apartment, absently chewing on my lower lip. Cage had promised not to lie to me, but that didn’t mean he always told me everything. The more I considered it, the more his excuse of “checking on the others” felt like a pretense. Was he confronting Priya without me? Planning something with Mia? I frowned. I’d thought we were past this, past him going behind my back and over my head, past the others mistrusting and excluding me. But something was up with his sudden excuse for departure.
The apartment was dark when I entered, as if someone had drawn the curtains. “Cage?” I called.
“In here,” he answered.
I steeled myself for the conversation to come and walked into the kitchen.
The room was dark, but three candles of varying colors and sizes stood in the center of the table, illuminating it with their flickering light. Plates, wineglasses, and cutlery were set across from one another. In the center of the table was a feast of … well, dried and prepackaged foods: bottled water, some kind of wrinkled fruit, and tins with unrecognizable contents. But my heart still leaped at the sight. “Cage,” I said softly.
He grinned awkwardly, leaning against the counter. “I realized we’d never been on a real date,” he said. “And I thought, well, given the way our lives have been going, we should probably do that sooner rather than later. Kenzie, will you have dinner with me?”
I laughed. All of my fears and worries, even the constant specter of grief and betrayal, floated away in a sudden burst of euphoria. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I will.”
We settled at the table. “It’s not exactly a feast,” Cage apologized, spooning some kind of lumpish gray things onto my plate. “And I really hope none of it is spoiled.”
“Cage,” I said, “shut up.”
He grinned, his teeth flashing in the candlelight, and bit into the gray stuff. “Edible,” he pronounced it after a moment of chewing. I winced but followed suit. It wasn’t bad. Kind of bland and chewy. I wasn’t sure if I was eating canned meat or vegetables or something else altogether, and I didn’t want to risk asking. Cage probably didn’t know either.
He swallowed with what was obviously some effort and laced his hands behind his head. “So. What do you think we’re up against … ?”
I shook my head. “No. Just for a while, let’s talk about something, anything else.”
“Fair enough. What’d you have in mind?”
I racked my brain. I’d been on dates before, but conversations usually revolved around the corporation and our futures, definitely not topics I wanted to bring up with Cage. “Tell me more about Taipei,” I said at last.
Cage shrugged. Had I made him uncomfortable, said the wrong thing? But he turned his fork meditatively in his fingers and replied, “It’s a contradiction. Parts of it are stunningly beautiful. There’s still culture ther
e, still temples and mosques, museums and markets. But when the water rose and Taiwan flooded, the waters came all the way to Taipei. Parts of the city were submerged, and others were destroyed. That’s mostly where I lived: places destroyed by water, or by the riots that followed, and taken over by the gangs. Tourists still come there, but they never see the real city. I don’t even know how to explain it to you, unless …” He glanced at me thoughtfully. “The gangs run Taipei the way the corporations run the rest of the world. They’re on an even footing there. Not even Omnistellar could drive the criminals out of Taipei, and they didn’t dare try. It would mean eliminating three-quarters of the city.”
I nodded. There was a time when I would have scoffed, but after seeing how Omnistellar let Obsidian, the criminal empire run by Alexei’s uncle, operate under its nose, I understood a lot more about how my former corporation functioned. “Tell me about something beautiful,” I pleaded. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know about Cage’s shadowed past—I did. I wanted all of it, all of him. But I knew so much of the darkness, and he’d only given me glimmers of the light.
Cage grinned and launched into a long description of a trip his father took him and Rune on to the mountains, before he’d discovered their powers. I mechanically chewed and swallowed, lost in Cage’s words. He’d always had this ability, to bind someone with a story, and it had nothing to do with the powers the aliens gave him, either: it was a natural gift, like Alexei’s strength or Imani’s eye for beauty. I wasn’t known as much of a talker myself, and although I could use my words effectively enough when necessary, for now I was content to listen.
Eventually, as the sky faded to black, we moved to the living room, where Cage pried open a window and spread a blanket over the ridged ledge so we could sit together and stare into the night. We wrapped ourselves in another blanket and a few sweaters we’d scavenged from the apartment and leaned into each other as stars spilled across the sky. “They’re not the same stars we’d see on Earth,” I whispered. I was leaning against his back, framed by his legs, his arms wrapped loosely over my belly and sending shivers through my spine. “Right? They can’t be.”